


Flickers of Faith

by PipesFlowForeverandEver



Series: Hymns of Struggle [6]
Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: AU, Developing Friendships, Hurt/Comfort, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Coarse language, Mystery, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sammy survived Bendy, so its technically an actual au now, there is one slightly scary memory containing a sharp object, this fic is based mostly or only on information presented in chapters 1-3, two messed up people trying to figure out how to find peace in their hearts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-03 16:10:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14572671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PipesFlowForeverandEver/pseuds/PipesFlowForeverandEver
Summary: What's there to live for after you die? You struggle to exist- to make it all the way to your Lord- and all that greets you is Hell wrapped through your own flesh. Purgatory must be real after all. I pray and I pray and finally, something comes. Can it really help me after all that's happened?  -An empathetic attempt to comprehend and console Sammy Lawrence and other residents of the studio.





	1. The Last Stair

**Author's Note:**

> I only recently got an AO3 account, so I also have this fic posted on fanfiction.net. If you're worried about the authenticity of this posting, feel free to contact my fanfiction.net account of the same name and I'll verify for you that this work is not stolen.
> 
> This fanfic references violence and its aftermath as well as depictions of hallucinations and re-experiencing trauma. I do want to assure, however, that this fic attempts to realistically bring together two beings with deep emotional troubles in a way that does not romanticize abuse, but still acknowledges wrongdoings and the trauma of others' actions. 
> 
> This fic is an AU titled "Hymns of Struggle" that is based mostly or only on information based in Chapter 1-3 canon, my own idea of how the story possibly could have turned out as seen through the eyes of my OC. 
> 
> This fourth part will try to touch on the consequences and rewards of vulnerability and of the bittersweetness of hoping for more.
> 
> I mostly write this for both your enjoyment and mine, but comments still brighten my day if you have any thoughts.
> 
>  **Notes as of 5/18/18:**  
>  I'm just gonna keep an updated list at the end of this work and all the others of all the spectacular fanart you wonderful people keep making me that I'll never stop screaming about. I'll still be posting links in the notes of chapters as new art is made, but it makes sense to keep a big list somewhere!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Lord, how long will You look on? Rescue my soul from their ravages, my only life from the lions.”_ \- Psalm 35:17

It’s a deeply unnatural feeling to let your faith slip, even a little, just for one moment. 

The drop in your chest as you approach the floor at the end of the staircase; you stretch your leg just a little too far and miss the last stair. The way your foot swings into nothingness seems like you’ve willingly walked off a cliff. Maybe you trip and feel the floorboards crash into your temple. Maybe your sole simply falls flat and you’re uncomfortable at worst. In between, though, is the most unsettling place to be. 

Drifting in the air, freefalling for just blink. The need to balance yourself is sickening, and there’s the longest split second of not knowing if you’ll be fine or if you’ll finally tumble down. Even if it's a devastating resolution that awaits, you just want it to be over with. “Just don’t leave me not knowing where my own fate lies” you plead to someone outside of yourself. It’s an all-consuming, sudden comprehension of mortality that can leave you unable to deal with the actual problem itself. 

That’s the best way to describe where the disciples were after Alice turned them upside down. It’s true that they had willingly come to her, though, and beg she tell them what she knew. But ultimately, it left more questions than answers. In fact, it didn’t answer any questions at all. 

Maybe it should be made more precise exactly what had thrown the two into dismay. It had been so hard for Francine to accept their circumstances that she wanted to solve their mystery…even if Sammy held no desire for it at all. Indeed, as much as he wanted to find the person he used to be, it shook him to his core to try to chase it, especially when it seemed to run into the arms of an angel with a great, inexplicable rage for him; it was like deciding whether or not to go into the firy blaze that’s taken what is yours. Indeed, he didn’t know what he had done, and so she must have been evil incarnate- the only way to explain their lives when he remembered none of what she did. Even if that was dead wrong. And so then, torn between two kinds of desperation, he let his first friend enter hell in his stead. 

Even without a mirror, he could see himself a coward as a passing light flashed across her face in this blackened hall of machinery; she was his reflection and he saw the consequences. 

It was slight but there were marks- darker, duller flesh upon her face speckled on her cheeks alongside her usual brown flecks. She looked so tired. So shaken. So...- and he saw something he couldn't grasp- something in her eyes just in that brief electric shine that terrified him. And with that, he was realizing that everything he had tried to prevent may have occurred. He may have dismissed the woman to walk into the fire, and if that was true, he wasn’t sure how Bendy could ever forgive him. 

But then there was something worse. 

He was beginning to dread that maybe his lord kept him at bay for one particular purpose- so that the prophet would learn what would happen if he tried to unearth the past instead of hope for their future. What a horrible thing to dream it could be. And to dream was what had become so easy to do with his friend by his side, like her presence was a siren for whimsy long lost to the depths of his inky soul. 

To not want to lose that made him feel so inconceivably guilty. She felt guilty, too, but for other reasons. 

After all, she just wanted to understand- 

No. 

Now she recognized why it had been so effortless for her to begin to trust Sammy and now for her to begin to trust the angel’s fear of openness and the projectionist’s longing for what was once his, even as her bizarre connection to all three struggled to coexist in her mind. She came to realize that there’s a reason why she had cared for them all without second thought, even as the demon loomed over her like death’s shadow. Even as she now knew that there was something to be afraid of that Sammy had tried and failed to hide from her. 

Maybe it had been a fool’s errand for Francine to think she could have a family again. 

As they fled, someone wished they could tell them to stop, to allow themselves to feel that sickening drop as they missed only the last stair of their journey, to give themselves time to steady. They had done it before, after their first meeting with the angel. Can’t they do it again? 

_Don’t ignore it._

_Don’t let go._

_Please don’t let go._


	2. His Blessing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”_ \- Matthew 9:13

She wouldn’t let him touch her, and he wasn’t sure that in any of these horrible, agonizing years of entrapment that he had ever felt quite like this. Once again, just as he reached for understanding, his foot slipped the second he began to see it within grasp. 

Disgusting. 

Unworthy. 

Something inherent in his very nature made him inexplicably _bad._ And it was so much worse now; he had unconsciously allowed himself to believe, thanks to her, that maybe something was still inside him that was worthwhile. 

He turned his head to look at her again. Yes, yes, he knew she was different and different was everything he didn’t want her to be. 

And indeed, she was very, very different. 

Francine leaned into herself as she sat on the gurney, legs dangling over the edge. Usually they’d kick a little - usually it was as if there was something inside her that demanded she not stay still. It’s absence now was the only reason he had noticed it ever existed. The woman seemed frozen, chilled inside out. A half open mouth, half open eyes, and in the brief seconds he caught her gaze…a half open heart. 

Of course she didn’t trust him, he thought. Of course. 

But understanding doesn’t lessen the burden of acceptance. 

The feeling when you hurt someone you care about to the point where offering closeness, tenderness bothers them may be the worst fate of all. It means you’re helpless, totally useless to fix what you’ve caused. You can only sit there and watch the future unfold without you. 

…Unless you’re especially desperate. 

“Francine,” Sammy muttered, voice tripping inside his throat. It was rough, clumsy, and hardly became audible at all…but it was all he had. He had to give something, he _had_ to give something to fix this. 

Her eyes only flashed up to him, then back down when he had no further words to give. Usually she’d be so skilled at reading his faceless expressions, so willing to at least try. Its lacking now made him sick. 

“Francine,” he begged again. 

Nothing. Her brow only furrowed just a touch tighter, weighed with weariness. He didn’t know that it wasn’t the journey that had harmed her; she had asked to go after all and still did not regret it. No, it wasn’t that- it was the uncertainty that followed. And so she retreated into herself, unsure how to reconcile everything she knew with everything that seemed to elude her forever. 

But he didn’t know, so anxiety overcame him. Unbearable silence; it needed to end. Please talk, please talk, please talk, please talk- 

_“Francine-!”_

And before he knew it, he couldn’t tolerate the quiet any longer. He looked down at his hands and saw her shoulders beneath them now. He felt them tighten. He centered his gaze and- 

He saw her gape turn into a frown, and as he retracted with a small gasp, a frown turned into a scowl. 

“SAMMY-” How could she be so loud? She was never this loud. “Take a FUCKING chill pill for TWO MINUTES, DUDE! _Don’t freak out on me!”_

Both she and him retracted in surprise. Her outrage thawed into shock, and she was back in the studio once more instead of inside the machinations and assumptions her own head. For the first time since they reunited, she actually saw him as he was instead of what the twists of this mystery made him to be. The shadowy figure of her mind- the one that loomed over her when they first met- turned his mask away and dissolved into who was before her now. 

It only brought her more conflict, and so the only thing she knew to do was groan loudly and keep him out of her sight. She immediately regretted how she didn’t take that split-second opportunity to meet his guise’s painted eyes before she pushed past him, but she could only keep going. And so she made her way to the hammock and sat once more, same half open expression now meaning an entirely different thing. 

And if you caught her eyes again, you’d see a glint of fear as they trembled in their sockets. 

Even as he could still feel his presence, she couldn’t meet his gaze. Not after that. But he wouldn’t leave. She squeezed her eyelids shut and gritted her teeth. Let this moment pass. Please, let it pass- 

A noise. 

A noise she had never heard before. Not from him. 

Laughter. 

A soft chuckle roughened his throat. She turned her chin up, and as she did, she grasped maybe it wasn’t laughter after all. Maybe underneath that mask, he was crying. 

“…I don’t understand what you’re saying.” Hardly a whisper, hardly voiced at all. Finally, thanks to her outburst, everything unconscious inside Sammy had culminated into reality. It didn’t only expound his shaken faith, didn’t only unsettle his existence; like a pebble tossed into water’s reflection, it broke his entire vision of what he could be. 

His whole world was falling apart all over again, but only this time, he saw it coming. 

She didn’t see the depths of his suffering, and so she thought she could remedy it with a mere: 

“I’m sorry.” 

It may have taken a lot for her to say it- maybe it represented a lot to her- but it went so much deeper for him; it was a difference as vast as the length of their lives. Of course, Francine conceding at least momentarily for the sake of peace was validly a disturbing experience. 

But breaking the very foundation of who you are? 

A watch turned to the wall only briefly came to her after a pause, almost as if there was a delay in the sound of her lips; the surprise took him only for a second, however, and his head shook such simple reconciliations away. 

Flecks of him landed underneath her feet. 

“If-” No, don’t give up just yet. _“…when_ our lord releases us…what will I come back to?” 

And just like that, Francine realized she had released a few strange words into this world trapped in time. Sammy had already been stripped so far of his spiritual comfort that now all that was left was who he was. So with her final blow, the prophet found his god’s armor could not prevent a piercing through his very being. 

With a few bits of slang, the disciples realized that the life he longed for wouldn’t be the same. He couldn’t recognize the remnants she had brought with her. 

Suddenly and abruptly, it wasn’t so hard to want to forgive. His stability in this moment was hers- and always had been. That’s why she tried to uncover his secrets. She hoped that maybe their existence could be a bit easier, if he could just understand. If _she_ could just understand. 

How uncomfortable was it to feel both empathy and bitterness for the man she put all her faith in. How difficult it was to figure out what to do about it. And so her stare at him merely sharpened with worry, thumbs anxiously fiddling with each other between her dangling legs. Just past her sight of them, Francine saw Sammy grasp his upper arm, oily skin shining as to reveal that he was really, truly melting away. 

It was a thought worth melting over. 

“…I’m sorry, Francine.” He spoke to her, but his face was pointed as far away as he could. 

Shame. 

Humiliation. 

Despondency. 

And as she battled with her growing sympathy from him, anger emerged. 

“Why are you sorry?! You don’t-“ And he finally looked at her, so she stopped where she was. Somehow without a face, he was expressing probably the most profound sadness the woman had ever seen in her entire life. 

He slowly let go of himself and his lean into the wall became a lurch towards her, a small, dark smear on the wood panel appearing where he used to be. Soon Francine’s hair started to dangle further along her back, his height so tall over her even in her elevated seat that he needed to adjust her head to meet his eyes. That wasn’t where she was supposed to look, she found, as her peripheral revealed two black smudges near her stomach. 

He had laid his palms flat, unsure if it was for her to observe or for him to lament. Either way, it was all he could focus on. _Drip_ s continued to fall, almost in hope that enough of them leaving would reveal his original skin once more. 

“This flesh isn’t a disfigurement,” Sammy admitted to himself, “It’s a coma.” 

And so it was. Just as he knew not who he was, he knew not what existed without him. It was like a flower left behind in a dark closet, forgotten as a family moved out and on without remembering to take it with them. And even as he was that bloom, he was unsure if he was still alive or dead. He wouldn’t know until someone opened the door. 

…So he may never know, he had begun to dread. 

And they were left there, staring at the inky soma that tried to leave him. And in a way, it did. Like drops of blood, small orbs formed at the back of his hands and splattered between them once their weight grew too heavy. Over and over, one by one they slipped off. But the disciple knew the curse couldn’t be washed away so easily. It would only reveal more of how he had rotted thoroughly inside out; what left him sank into the floorboards, returning to the puddles, the pipes, and the ink machine. From whence his form came, his flesh would always feed. It was the price for keeping a flame lit that had long wished it could die. 

Francine feared the machine. She feared the words of the angel, the fate of the projectionist. She could see the demon’s face smiling down upon her, and she was unsure if it was a blessing or an omen. For a brief second, he could see Bendy stand over Sammy too. And as she did she was suddenly so, so aware of how much trust she had put into the two, and she had begun to close off her heart. 

It was a very inopportune time to realize how vulnerable she was. 

She swallowed and let her lips pull down. Now had come a conscious choice. She could either fear Sammy and live the rest of this imprisonment wary of he and his god, or she could do her best to accept it, blindly letting belief envelope her until the demon set them free. 

…Neither were to her satisfaction, of course. Suddenly, her scowl returned, but it wasn’t one of hatred- oh no. Determination. Time to make her own path. Even if it was trouble, she couldn’t live with herself any other way. As she had resolved before, if she was stuck here, she was going to have to survive not just physically but emotionally. 

“Sammy.” 

He didn’t move, but she could feel him finally look back at her...just as her own head turned away. She could hardly look inside herself to say this, let alone him anymore. 

“You-” His body finally shifted as she spoke again, the quakes in her voice reawakening him to her presence. “You’ll be with me.” It was resolute all the same. But of what? Sammy’s neck tilted his wooden face closer to her, either in confusion or incredulity. 

Her hands rubbed each other, slowly but roughly over and around each other and their fingers, impatient to release this anxiety. 

“When we get out of here, I-…” The woman needed to pause. This would change everything all over again, so soon after she had come to see the studio for what it was, Sammy more for who he is. They didn’t know who he used to be, and so it was a shot in the dark if whatever he had done to anger the angel was worth forgiving- 

Francine had to stop herself again. No more “if or.” It was _her_ life. She’d find a way. And so there was only one question left to ask herself: 

Did she really want to make this promise? 

-She saw his hands once more between them, fingers still curled as if he was begging for something that could save him- 

Yes, she did. 

“When we get out of here,” she began again, “…I’ll take care of you.” 

Underneath her brow, her eyes slid back up to look at him; the chill was still there, but much like he, Sammy saw something that still burned inside after all. 

The dabs of paint that served as eyes almost seemed to shine alongside as they were both taken by revelation. 

“We- maybe, maybe we’re not the only ones that lived through this like I thought we were-” Frustration was tangible in her voice at this fact, but she pushed on. “But we’re living through this together. You- you were…” She frowned once more, gaze falling to their pairs of hands. “…there for me when I needed someone.” 

He watched his set finally leave their stance and bend into his chest, shaking. 

“I’m going to be there for you when you need someone, too. And besides.” And then her own hands moved, her arms folded. A show of bravado and stability that tried and failed to balance her downright helpless words. “…I think I may still need you then too.” And it was true. A lot had occurred, much more than anyone was supposed to experience in a single lifetime. With the agony of years of suffering came with it a sort of wisdom, and maybe, just maybe, he could help her learn to live not only through it but in spite of it. 

A mutter came from his mouth, a sigh broken into bits. Sammy was a philosophical man, one always filled with responses. But not to this. Never before had someone besides his lord promise him hope. And it was such an incredible hope to give when one promises not to leave the other behind. The future was terrifying, but maybe less so if she could still find some good in him. Maybe less so if they went hand in hand. 

But as with his lord, hope came with a price. 

“But no more funny business!” Francine was loud again, her self-preservation turning from a need for companionship into a need for honesty. “I…I heard a _lot_ of things down there-” Saw a lot, too. “-and I know you don’t know a lot, but that should give you more reason not to keep secrets.” 

Sammy’s shoulders fell back and his clenched hands flinched a little more upwards in softness at her next words: 

“If you really want me safe, then that’s the way it has to be.” 

Yes, it was still a struggle to trust him, but she wanted to. So she was going to meet him halfway. Even in its uncertainty, it was worth a shot. It meant she wouldn’t have to be alone, after all. 

She wasn’t going to ignore the angel, she promised herself. But she had seen too much in Sammy to ignore that he really, genuinely seemed to make his soul bare in her presence. That much deserved consideration. 

And the woman had a feeling it wasn’t Sammy that was the “he” she needed to distrust. 

It was only now that she was done that Francine realized Sammy hadn’t said a single thing since she began. His scratched face was directed straight down at her, but she couldn’t be sure what he saw. 

After a second of quiet, another light laugh. 

And then his knees bent a little, and through his mask was a mouth open in awe and disbelief. Then...relief. His world and his faith could survive another day. “…A blessing,” he decided. She was his blessing. 

The question of Bendy allowing her harm would live on to haunt him, but for now, he was satisfied. In his desperation for firm ground, he allowed the worry of mere moments before to be buried beneath this one good thing his lord had bestowed upon them. The demon had brought her to his prophet, after all. Not only today but into his existence, and the time they spent together had already seemed like so much more than anything he’d gone through his entire life. Her mortal hand brought with it the graces of life beyond the ink. Wasn’t that what he had asked for all along? Wasn’t that enough? 

Indeed, the lights seemed to flicker just a bit brighter when she was around. That was surely a sign God was with them.


	3. Your God and Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.”_ \- Matthew 15:18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5/18/18: I GOT???? MORE ART???? YOU GUYS???? I LOVE YOU????? A LOT??? I'D ACTUALLY DIE FOR YOU????
> 
> The Lil Griffin:  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/post/173800560453/he-was-standing-up-now-limbs-outstretched-as
> 
> BallofYarn (AO4)/ Startistdoodles (tumblr):  
> https://startistdoodles.tumblr.com/post/173971763385/hey-so-i-pretty-much-made-a-tumblr-just-to-post

“And well…that was it.” Her tale ended on a high, soft note. Out of context it seemed to understate the absolute blood-pounding revelation of her epoch, but it came out mildly as the weariness of recall gripped her shoulders. 

Once again, Sammy found himself sitting across from the woman in the living room of this strange apartment, overcome by flabbergast. So Alice didn’t hurt her after all…although she did threaten her life. Such behavior was expected; however, it stood in stark contrast to everything else she described. 

“He…didn’t try to attack you?” Sammy asked with both hesitation and disbelief about the newest being she had met. 

The corner of Francine’s mouth pulled back. “No. He-” She put a hand to her throat, a gentle recognition of a past sensation. “He was just… _feeling,_ I think.” A questioning gaze looked up to the prophet. “Norman can’t- can’t hear, right?” 

A slow, wordless nod from across the table and nothing more. _Norman…Norman…_ Sammy had never called him that but…it felt correct. If the angel called him so, then it must be the projectionist’s former name. 

But now that he thought of it, there was a lot of things they had accepted from her as truth without question. Yes, she did know Sammy’s name, but who was to say that in her own desperation to find fulfillment in this cursed immortality, she hadn’t designed her own history- her own fabricated reality of once was? Alice would certainly have reason to; this world was at times…unbearable. 

Certainly so if one didn’t have faith. And if she didn’t believe in the ink demon, she could only believe in herself and her own machinations. 

As a mental mention of his lord grazed his conscious, both his eyes and his heart were grasped by the sight in front of him. The woman’s head was slightly downturned, eyelids shut with fatigue. Her arms were folded into her chest almost to hold herself. A few black stains soaked into her current short-sleeved shirt; he could see traces of where drops of ink trailed along her head and arms. The thin object in her grasp trembled, mirroring her current instability. 

Yes, there was one thing that he hoped above all that Alice was being honest about. 

“Praise be the demon was by your side.” 

All she did in response was look up at him again and let her gaze fall just as soon. She wasn’t ready to try to describe her newfound fears of his lord, and even if she was, she wasn’t sure she’d even know what to say. Just as Sammy gave his entire soul to the ink demon, Francine had begun to do the same. And now she was in limbo, spirit lost as she had yet to push forward or to turn back. It was insufferable. 

She had to change the subject. Thankfully it wasn’t difficult; the thing between her fingers had not been forgotten. And so the only sound for a minute was the crinkling of paper, unfolded as delicately as her shaky hands could muster. 

“She…she gave me this.” Sammy only saw the back of the parchment; even as it covered the lower half of her face from this angle, he could still glimpse a growing expression upon her face. There was something about it that he didn’t like. 

“Alice…she made me leave before I could ask about it.” The photo was gingerly placed upon the table faceup for him to see. “Do you…” she began to ask, hesitation slowing her voice, “know who they are?” 

* * *

It was wall to wall. 

Black. 

Black. 

Black. 

It was wet. It was cold. It soaked through cloth then flesh then bone. He could feel it chew at his legs like a starving dog pouncing on tablescraps. 

He looked back. A wave gushed once more and had begun to swarm her waist. He knew somehow it longed to rise further, until nothing was left of them. It wanted to take everything- everything they were, everything they had. In the back of his mind, maybe he knew it wanted to take everything they would be. 

The woman with auburn hair reached out just as the ink washed over him. 

He heard her scream. 

He could hear Susie scream. 

* * *

Sammy’s shadow loomed over the faded image of a white woman with dark hair and a black man wearing glasses. Francine felt worry eat into her. Every time they brought up his past, he seemed consumed by it, almost like he couldn’t remember anymore, almost like trying stopped his brain entirely. So it was no surprise when he finally said: 

“I don’t know who they are.” 

So soon after she asked him to not keep secrets. 

“Well there goes that idea,” she sighed. And then she misinterpreted the silence of horror for that of guilt. “…Thank you anyway, Sammy. Don’t worry about it.” A tender glance fell upon him with words to match. “I know you can’t help it.” 

No, he could not, but it was still his choice to lie when recollection finally succeeded. It was terrifying. Utterly terrifying. Was that him? Was that Susie? Who was Susie? That name was so fresh on his false tongue, like it was spoken or heard so many times before that he could feel it shape his lips by memory alone; surely it had mattered to him at some point. 

It took him not even a minute to decide it didn’t matter. Yes, he’d keep telling himself that, for Francine’s journey and absence taught her one thing: that this was not their lord’s way. 

Certainly her barely scraping past death was not only the demon’s grace but also his lesson. In his entire accursed life, Sammy had never strayed far from the path as this. And with it became fear. Just as he had been punished by the demon before, he had been now. He could still see the glorious silhouette of his lord stand above him after shoving the prophet to the floor. 

Yes, he could see it now. For his sins, he had been forced to wait as the lost lamb found her way through the mazes of hell, helpless to coax her back. Sammy hadn’t been that frightened before- not since… 

He gulped as he caught remnants of when the ink demon first called upon him as his prophet. 

“Hey,” she said to wake him. 

And he was back with her again. Suddenly she seemed much more…fragile. Not in the same way as when she was physically broken, bleeding internally and limp in his grasp. No, all he could see when he looked at the woman was the fear of her being _spiritually_ broken. 

It was something he had felt himself, and so it was something he couldn’t bear. She was his blessing, and he was her steward. Her soul was his duty. His obligation. His purpose. 

Oh how such care can contrast with that belonging to another. 

As she stared down at the picture, an idea firmly clasped her heart and wouldn’t let go. The demon’s sneer was emerging over her. Like vines choking a sapling, it grew and grew until- 

“I think we should try to talk to him.” 

Her eyes were wide with urgency, adrenaline suddenly filling her veins. 

Him? Sammy shook his head, concern quickly coming. “He’s mute, Francine. The projectionist-” 

“No,” she interrupted. That word came quickly but it was so much more difficult to allow the unthinkable into reality. “Bendy.” Determination flashed over her eyes. “We need to talk to Bendy.” 

And certainly this was the most inconceivable idea possible. “Bendy” was a _god._ A being who only blessed disciples with his righteous presence by his own omniscient choice. Seek HIM out?! “R-” Sammy stuttered as absolute dread began to take him, the most taboo of concepts materializing from thin air. “Ridiculous! Absolutely not!” And just as she had unexpectedly become so bold, so had he. But he had to know. It didn’t make a lick of sense- “What would be the purpose of seeking out our lord?” 

Oh, would he regret having asked, as she had an answer at the ready like an arrow in a bow’s string. 

“I mean- I mean, it makes sense right?!” Her hands were thrown up in a gesture mixing both upset and a begging for him to understand. “We wanna know who you are- what the hell _happened_ to you guys and this entire fucking place. Why not just ask him?” She shrugged. “He seems like he owns the place. Gotta- gotta know something about it, right?” 

To think she could even approach him-! 

And as her shrug lowered, she found Sammy rising. The shadow cast over the photo became longer and longer until it fell upon her face. Her bravado wavered as the shepherd became overwhelmed with a feeling she hadn’t seen from him before- not like this. 

Outrage. 

“Don’t.” A pause. His voice almost shook. “Speak of him so recklessly.” 

It was a tone of seriousness that could never be surpassed, its icy frost piercing her until she could no longer meet his gaze. She brought her hands to her chest again, fiddling with them anxiously as her eyes fell upon- 

Wait. 

No. 

It mattered. It still mattered. 

And soon the woman had lifted herself over the table, thrusting the faces of the two lost souls of the photo right up to Sammy’s mask so he could ignore them no longer. 

“Don’t you wanna _know?!”_ Francine begged of him, “What about them?! They were PEOPLE, Sammy!!!” 

His dark figure did nothing, even as he gazed upon who they used to be. 

It teased him, it teased him so so much, but- 

“These are forces we aren’t to tamper with, my sheep.” The return of his old term for her, a signal of his previous way of life returning, maybe even stronger than ever. “We are but specks of sand at the feet of our lord. We will never be worthy to understand…” His chin lowered and somehow his mask’s hue became only more shadowy, emphasizing how desperately he needed to communicate this with her, how deeply mistaken she was. Abruptly, the photo placed in front of him was snatched from her grasp with a speed, with a force of disgust and certainty unmatched by any other. “…Until he deems us worthy.” 

And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

“Give it back! I was just- I’m just-” Her torso leaned further across the table, in vain as he was so much taller than she. “I just want to help! I don’t understand why that’s so hard for you to get! _Just let me help!”_

“To ‘get?!’” Oh what a terrible, meaningful scorn in his voice. It made her feel ghastly. “I don’t want to know! _I don’t need to know!”_

And in a finale, one last stretch and a groan led the woman to falling over the table entirely, a thud sounding as her ribs slammed against its surface. 

And they were back in the past again, back when she first fell down from the spotlight onto her chest, back when he first found her in agony, hoping that through her, his lord would finally bring salvation. 

And like before, he again offered no help as she struggled to pick herself back up, merely standing back and watching in amazement and outstretched limbs. The old, inky heart in his chest had never beat so fast before. This was everything he had ever feared- things he had never known existed to fear at all. And so even as it would sound so apathetic to her, his next words were of utmost kindness: 

“I… _shouldn’t_ know, Francine.” His shoulders drooped as her face lifted up to him, radiating confusion. “We are only meant to look ahead, not behind.” And then his marred, wooden smile was level with hers, lowering to his knee. Maybe if he was truthful enough, maybe if he was vulnerable enough, she’d understand. She’d stop this foolish game of cat and mouse with the curse of the studio, pleading for it to take her as well. 

“That is what our lord wants from us.” 

Her half-lidded eyes grew softer, and hope in his heart grew as she opened her mouth- 

“You…deserve to know.” 

And the tides of longing took it away. 

So he rose again alongside the boiling rage in his chest. He was going to say something utterly evil- please, please don’t say it- 

“Then go.” 

Breath left her as the woman saw Sammy merely stride out of the room and into the hall. Not another word, not another regard. That was the end. 

How deeply ironic after having pledged to one another they would never leave the other’s side. 

Indeed, they both had made touching promises too soon out of hasty desperation, and their breaking was much more painful than the burden of patience would have been. The man that only wished to protect Francine threw her to the lions, and the woman that only wished to give Sammy what he once had would have to do it in spite of him. Funny how people so confidently do the opposite of what they want most. 

And as she stood alone- truly alone- outside the closed door of the saferoom with her backpack slung over her shoulder, she had begun to realize that she could verbally dismiss the demon’s power and presence but could not stop believing in her heart that he was something to be mortally afraid of. 

But if he was death, then death’s wisdom held more comfort than living in ignorance.


	4. A Turn of the Page

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.”_ \- Hosea 10:12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! I know I haven't updated in a while. REALLY big stuff is eventually coming and I've been mulling over how to handle it. This chapter and probably the next few will be a bit short as I take baby steps getting to where I want us to go. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> OH ALMOST FORGOT! Here's more wonderful art from three fantastic friends!!! Thank you all!!!
> 
> BallofYarn (AO3) / Startistdoodles (tumblr)-  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/post/174122733358/startistdoodles-i-do-love-me-some-shenanigans-xd  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/post/174154475243/startistdoodles-after-i-made-the-canon-doodles
> 
> LePetitInkMango-  
> https://lepetiteinkmango.tumblr.com/post/174202584715/hello-yes-i-am-absolutely-in-fucking-love-with
> 
> Metallicartist-  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/post/174345978653/metallicartist-just-a-little-something-for

What a horrible loneliness it can become to be driven by your own stubbornness. Even if it’s for another, it can only push them away. A flash of this exact sensation stung her for just a moment, but it was forcibly swiped aside. In its place stood the silhouette of the one she wanted to see most. 

No, Bendy may not have been in sight physically, but as Sammy ached the back of her mind, his lord stood at its front. 

And so she went. 

… 

Where to though? 

At one of the shady corners of these weaving halls, the woman stopped in her steps. Damn it, she hadn’t thought this through in the _least_ \- literally a straight walk from “maybe Bendy knows what we don’t” to wandering the darkness with no end goal in mind. Her gaze turned up ahead towards the loud, pulsing machinery, like the organs of a monster that had consumed her. Didn’t this route only lead to the Heavenly Toys anyway? And if she _did_ find him- 

“What the _fuck_ would I say…?!” she whined under her breath, leaning one palm onto the metal wall. 

Certainly, doubtlessly, this was a bite she took that was far too big to chew; it was so exhausting that mere minutes into her journey, she needed to catch her breath. And just for a second, she’d take that desperately needed moment to think and process what this search actually meant to her. 

“I just want…” What…did she want? A sigh escaped her lips as she studied her own heart. What was there? It felt…warm somehow, this feeling. A desire, a burning one. Like a flame inside her chest that didn’t know how to get out- 

“I just want to feel okay again.” 

Suddenly nothing was there to keep her upright. The pressure against her palm was gone and she stumbled headfirst into… 

Somewhere. 

A yelp and a thud; that’s all she heard. No metal creaking, no wood giving way…no sign of what had just occurred besides her own self living through it. The side of her head bounced once after it hit the floorboards, but it was immediate for her to lift herself off the ground. What the hell? 

Yes, she had certainly fallen, as if the wall she had leaned against was never there at all. Her eyes fluttered away specs of white from the blow, watching her own arms force herself off of her side. Francine was just about to begin to stand up when she…she noticed something. 

As she sat upon the floor, turning her head every which way, Francine knew this was not where she had been before. It was…too different to be the same place- from metal to wood and from murk with glimmers of equipment to a dim, ethereal luminescence a long radius around her. From the guts of machinery, she had fallen into a hall of wood and candlelight. The woman was disturbed but reluctantly knew she needed to investigate, and so she fully stood up with a light groan to spin around and take in whatever secret path she pressed open by accident. 

…Wait. That couldn’t be right. 

She spun again. Then again. Then again. 

How long had she second-guessed if it was her new headache making her dizzy, hallucinatory, before she noticed that it seemed like she fell from one world to the next? There were no holes. No doors. No sign that there was a connection between where she was and where she stood now. She had expected a break of some kind that lead her from there to here and its lacking left her utterly astounded and deeply troubled. 

From one realm into the next absolutely seamlessly, like it was just the turn of the page in a book of fairy tales. Indeed, for her to just suddenly materialize here must have been magic’s doing, and it took her breath away once more. 

It was a hall somehow both lit and shadowed. Candles stood alongside the walls in a scarce, unorderly fashion; never was one close enough to another that the actual wax of both could be seen- besides the one near her feet, all others were dots quivering in darkness. 

Indeed, she was placed in the middle room that seemed endless both to her left and to her right with nowhere else to go. A sweat broke onto her brow and she began to hyperventilate; she could only think of a few possibilities of what this could mean. 

None of them were good. 

Shoulders raised heavily with her labored breath and her cheeks squeezed up towards her eyes. _“Breathe. Breathe. Not here. Not here,”_ she begged herself. 

One shaky deep intake of air after another, seeming to tremor more the harder she tried to fight an upcoming anxiety attack. 

Francine closed her eyes. 

… 

… 

…And opened them again, still breathing roughly as she finally decided to step in one direction of the endless wooden cave to find her way forward or backward. 

There were only a few things her circumstance could mean, and none of them would let her stay. Whether this was a nightmare, the result of someone transporting her unconscious, or a phase between time and space itself…she couldn’t be still. 

She tried not think about what this could mean for her search of Bendy, unknowing it was her goal that had led her here. Omniscience was watching, but it could not control, so it merely prayed as Francine put one foot in front of the other. 

Her round figure seemed to supernaturally fuzz into the blackness as it approached the path of lights, even the sound of her footsteps muting into nonexistence. It seemed unnatural for Sammy’s sloshed ones to not join by her side.


	5. Surrounded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”_ – Psalm 23:4

The hum of ethereal nothingness enveloped her every move forward; it found its way to her skin and sank from her pores into her very body until the essence of this ghostly plane was in tempo with her heart. This music of silence made her feel sick inside out. 

How long had she been walking? She couldn’t tell. The whole studio had been otherworldly, certainly, but somehow this was even more so. It was a narrow but never-ending room with no doors, no windows- just the occasional splatter of ink staining the wood and seeping into its cracks. She looked upward as she kept walking, shadow fuzzing her peripheral vision. There was a pipe that ran across the center of the ceiling, and as she stared she noticed its pumping. 

**_Pump._ **

**_Pump._ **

**_Pump._**

Like a heartbeat, and she could see the liquid void swish its way over her head and behind to journey who knows where. Glimmers- she could see…flickers of golden yellow run along the ink, maybe the pipe’s glass reflecting the candlelight- 

The darkness at the corner of her eyes suddenly started to give her a headache, forcing her eyes to squeeze shut from the pain and her head to tilt back down, one hand coming to her temple to massage it well. 

This had only stopped the woman for a brief second before she shook her head and stumbled back into step. She had to keep going towards whatever kept the ink pushing away. There was a premonition that it was a trail intended to be followed…or at least she’d make it one, hoping against hope. Her eyes steadied once again, the dusk chasing the corner of her sight seeming to pulse with her breath, which was noticeably difficult to regulate once again. 

The lighting of this hall must be supernatural; even as her feet passed candles, their glow seemed to never take the darkness just behind her away. It was deeply unsettling and- 

Suddenly a noise, like scurrying claws against floorboards accompanied by her gasp. Barely- just barely- a shadow teased its way from the dimness up ahead and retreated just as quickly. There was something up there. Instinctively, her left foot stepped backward on its toes, ready to pivot and run away. Almost immediately, however, it was inexplicably swallowed by corpselike cold, the bare skin that peaked from underneath the hem of her pants prickling with goosebumps. 

This was all it took for her to reluctantly but surely accept that despite whatever was waiting for her ahead, she couldn’t turn back. 

And it felt like as soon as she took another step forward and not back, the world faded away to black as she reached its threshold; as if it was merely a blink of the universe, the dreary colors of the studio soon came back in new shapes. 

The room was wide now and swamped with murk, swallowing the edges of what seemed to be chairs, tables, and posters. Instead of being endless ahead, it was endless side to side with a wall stretching in front. Despite the surprise of the sudden change of environment, it was a steadfast reflex by now to hit her righthand pants pocket for her phone to utilize its flashlight- 

The slap at her thigh was as hollow in sound as her soul felt once she realized she had left it behind. 

A flashlight soon wouldn’t be what phone function she’d miss most. 

Several meters away was a single door barely opened, a crack of light pouring in like a thin monolith, its radiance being the only thing that lit the room at all. It lined the silhouette of three beings that noticed her just as she noticed them. One head rose first above the others, glistening teeth at a mouth atop a skull ravaged with stitches; a thin rope traced from its forehead into an unblinking eye socket, and reached its way back out to wrap around its head. Then a second head moved- but this one _swung_ instead of raised as its body did, a wrecking ball resting in front of a torso undeniably carved with the word _“LIAR.”_

She wanted to scream but she couldn’t. And as she couldn’t scream, she couldn’t even dream to sing as the angel had taught her before. If the projectionist seemed to be like a child’s ragdoll torn apart and pieced back together by the curse of the studio, then these creatures were its _voodoo._

As Francine struggled to sing- not even sure if it’d work on monsters like _this_ \- it came out in croaks. One syllable broken up into three, four, five until it could no longer be called music but whimpering. It was like Francine a scared little girl standing in front of the monsters in her closet, quietly chanting a lullaby her mother promised would drive fear away to simply no avail; the butcher gang rose from their feet and she seemed to shrink down. 

The gremlin with their mouth sewn shut stared at her with intent, a shine coming over that single eye as it abruptly raised the metallic one of their three arms, ready to strike- 

Another arm raised in front of it. 

A soul unknown to the woman was standing in front of their brethren, back turned to them as they stared her down, unchanging even as its handless limb lowered once more. The Striker flinched back and turned their attention to the chimp-like monster that blocked them, twitching restlessly and curiously. This was a gesture of caution, certainly, but why? Indeed, as the woman stood opposed to them, she was shaking, feeble, and helpless; she had no weapon and certainly her fists alone couldn’t hold back all three of them. 

And yet the Piper knew to be wary of all Francine brought with her. 

All three of the gang’s eyes seemed to gape just above her until finally, the Fisher stepped back and led the trio’s fleeing, taking mere seconds for all three to disappear as they ran to one side of the room with no end in sight. 

Even as she had time to catch her breath, the bizarre, unsettling nature of this encounter still made her voice quiver. “Th-thank you,” she muttered certainly too low for them to hear by now. The only thing she could consider this with the little information she had was that it was a kindness; they had allowed her entry to the next phase of this world. Francine supposed the individual with a single hand was to thank for that, having ceased… _whatever_ the other was ready for. 

It left her, however, with only more questions for when she finally confronted Bendy, the ruler of this blighted kingdom. The frustration of it rekindled the fires of determination, and so she finally picked herself up and marched sternly to the now unguarded door. Her hand came in front of her, reaching for the doorknob bathed in the glow ahead- 

Francine paused precisely in place, fingers outstretched in front of the slit of light pouring in and over her. One half of her knuckles were brushed with the room’s gloom and the other with the luminescence of whatever lay ahead, their color was split evenly into two like she was at the eclipse between one realm and the next standing at this door. But like before with the appearance of the butcher gang, this shadow did not stay still. 

The darkness that had been huddling at the edge of her vision the whole time washed in and out like a tide, its rhythm in tandem with the shadow upon her hand now. Somewhere behind, she finally heard a drip. 

Francine didn’t need to turn around to comprehend that someone was watching over her now and had been since her arrival. 

Yes, the Piper had learned not long ago that the woman shouldn’t be trifled with. 

Not when **he** was there.


	6. Sinking Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.”_ – 1 John 5:20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Startist actually made art of THE LAST CHAPTER!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!! Please look and support the artist!!!!
> 
> https://startistdoodles.tumblr.com/post/174614624485/hey-look-another-hymns-thing-honestly-this

**Drip.**

**Drip.**

**Drip.**

With a soft, almost teasingly sweet _plunk!,_ one of the bathroom faucets leaked drop after drop of water into a sink stained with ink. True, sometimes the water in the plumbing was tainted with dribbles from the ink machine’s leaks, but it wasn’t today; clear drips fell down alongside the occasional solid black streak that fell from beneath Sammy’s mask. He watched them slide and smear their path to the piping, bits of him running down this abyss of a drain to end up who knows where. The sight of it caused a tightening of the man’s knuckles, the overhead lights’ reflection moving over his glossy form as his grip tensed. 

Sammy finally lifted his head to look in the grimy glass above the sink, face to face with a man melting away. If his solidness or lack thereof was a reflection of his emotional stability, then his body was the true mirror. How did he feel? Empty? Lonely? _Wrong?_ He couldn’t place it- not at all. It was simply a deep, unwavering discomfort that sought to take over his entire being like an army sweeping over enemy countryside. 

…Faith. Yes, it had to do with his faith- 

He shook his head in a single but firm swing, drops of his ink splattering in a thin line over the porcelain. He caught a glimpse of a scowl behind his mask, gritting teeth and curling lips. The last time he was this angry, the prophet recalled who he was and how his master would judge; when the woman first arrived and Sammy didn’t know what to do about her survival, he trusted the ink demon above his own instincts of stress. For the sake of his soul and their salvation, he recomposed. 

The fact he couldn’t do so again now only made this moment sting worse. 

A hefty sigh got stuck in his throat, escaping his mouth as a groan. Might as well have been a groan of pain. What was he to do? It had been proven so briefly before that Francine shouldn’t be by herself- that this was certainly not what his lord had intended for her- and yet Sammy not only allowed her to leave but _told her to go._ This was his fault. All his fault. 

Suddenly the sight of his sickly, inhuman body in the mirror was unbearable, and a closed fist slammed its side at the glass. 

A quivering gasp came out and slowly unfolding fingers started to tremble as Sammy saw the face of his lord where his hand had hit, mask peeking from beneath his palm as it began to stain his own reflection. It was amazing how intact his guise was; despite decade upon decade of suffering and peril, it was still recognizable as the visage of the ink demon. No number of scrapes or blows to the wood and paint could take away its glory. 

…By his god’s grace, it and Sammy were still unbroken. 

A second sigh, one of realization, one of remorse as Sammy relaxed his fist, and a flattened palm reverently touched the face of his lord before falling back to his side. Conflict boiled in his hollow chest like a cauldron brewing doubt. The ink demon knew them, watched them, _cared for them._ The nature of his master once again alluded him, and he suddenly felt so very unsure about his sheep’s pursuit of truth. 

He witnessed his lips purse behind the hole of his mask before turning away to leave. 

Truth…truth… 

As he leaned one arm onto the doorway of the bathroom, he knew what the truth was. This whole time, he tried to escape it. He blocked out the memories of Sammy Lawrence to the point that passing his name over and over, day after day, could hold no meaning. It was both the obscuring curse of the studio and his own unwillingness to remember that caused his ignorance. It made sense to be ignorant, after all; to recall what he used to have in reminiscence rather than hope meant to long for what he would never have again. If-… _when_ the demon released them, he could regain his body. He could regain his mind. But he could never once again be who he was _when_ he was. 

Realizing there was something his god couldn’t give him was absolutely unbearable, and- 

_“NO!”_

With a slight forward bounce of the head, Sammy screamed at no one besides himself to stop. Regardless of whether or not this thought was true, it was not to be acknowledged for the sake of his own emotional security. His foundation of faith could not afford to have another crack, lest it crumble beneath his feet and plunge him into the oblivion so many souls trapped in the studio allowed themselves to be taken by. 

His panting chest straightened a bit as Sammy spotted the table in the living room just up ahead. The photo. Even as it threatened to oppose everything he was, he had to see the photo. He knew its image revealed who they used to be. 

But as he reached the table where he had surely left it, it was gone. 

As he had been lamenting his decisions and the very nature of his existence in the bathroom, something happened in this room. There was no sign of it now- and so Sammy assumed the woman took it with her- but something had happened to that photograph before he could find it. 

Ink had dripped little by little from the ceiling, weighing the aged paper till it was pinned to the table and eventually drowned entirely by its black. The small pool that had formed bubbled just a bit before dissipating into nonexistence, leaving nothing where it touched like maggots cleaning a bone of its flesh. 

All that was there to take was her phone, and so with reluctance, Sammy did so- unsure what it could do for him but simultaneously unsure what else he could grasp to save himself. 

For some reason, Sammy felt he couldn’t save Francine this time; he couldn’t the time before, after all. And now she was chasing what he knew he could never. But as he remembered his lord standing over him- preventing the prophet from rescuing his lamb- Sammy also accepted that despite his sin, she would be okay. Even if he could not comprehend his ways, the ink demon would watch over his friend, even as she pursued the unattainable. 

* * *

Francine could hear the rough breath of the ink demon over her shoulder- could _feel_ it too, unless that was simply the supernatural cold that seemed to follow in his shadows. As she had chased him, she still hadn’t answered for herself exactly what she was doing, just what she wanted to say. She identified a feeling- “to be okay”- and nothing more. As the god of this realm stood over her, precisely where she wanted to be, she had never once asked herself if she knew what to beg of someone she deemed to be all-knowing. 

A gulp slithered down her throat. She could start with the obvious and immediate, even as the possibility of questioning it could bring her out of the demon’s favor. 

“Why- why am I here?” she asked with a pivot- or at least the start of one. She stopped halfway, looking over her shoulder as the sight of the inky god took her breath away. Now that she had turned, all the light from the doorway ahead had slid past her nose and fallen upon him; underneath the yellow radiance, it allowed her to observe how the ink upon his body **moved,** its flesh never still; it constantly dripped down, and yet like Sammy surrounded by candlelight, this light showed he could melt and melt but never entirely away. 

It made her realize once again that Bendy and the people made in his image were far, far away from anything she could be or understand. 

Silence followed. The only sound was his **drips.**

Her shoulders rose and fell in quick succession a few times as she began to grasp the situation. Eyes flew forward to stare at the watercolor aura of his washing over her and bleeding into the endless darkness of the hall, now in front of her. She couldn’t see him anymore- couldn’t bear to- but her right shoulder prickled with the all-too familiar six sense of knowing the demon had begun to loom closer. 

**Drip.**

**Drip.**

**Drip.**

They accompanied a pained, inhuman yet so human wheeze barely whispered through a never-changing smile that stretched around his head. A pain of her own pierced her chest, her heart beating so fast it began to ache. 

Adrenaline is a hell of a thing. 

Francine suddenly whipped around to fully face him, eyes shut tight with fear, anger, and perseverance so she may endure whatever her foolish longing would bring her. 

“What the heck happened?! _Why are we all here like this?! WHAT HAPPENED TO MAKE ALL THIS-”_

She had started to scream before realizing she was doing so straight at the ink demon, a shift in his stance audible enough for her to open her eyes in surprise and shut up. Two things happened simultaneously. One- a hyperventilating Francine took a step back in terror, causing her to slip on her heel and throw her back onto the door with a soft thud, the slit of light disappearing from Bendy’s eternal grin as she accidentally closed the only exit shut. 

Two- she saw the ink demon’s shoulder roll back as his right arm lifted towards her. 

She was unsure to be grateful or to curse how a glow still streamed underneath the door in dim rays, barely making visible as for the second time since her arrival to the studio, Bendy let his ungloved claws rest in the air in front of her. 

…And once again, it did not move to touch her. As the muscles of her back pressed into the door, arms outstretched side to side with their fingers trying to clasp flat wood, the panting woman tilted her chin up and saw him as he was before; besides this gesture, he was still unmoving. 

He was waiting for her, Francine began to realize. 

The first time this had occurred, she was so in awe that she thoughtlessly reached for this being- the one she believed to be her savior. As she questioned now if he truly was, it was left uncertain if she should reach for him again. 

As his beastly paw rested between them, the smaller of his two hands still so so gigantic as it stayed beside her torso, clearly she had no choice. 

Maybe she shouldn’t have been so surprised that yet again, his hand consumed hers- totally engulfing her flesh with his own like a swarming flood- but she was. Deathly cold for a split second, then she felt nothing at all. And then, once more…something in her hand. 

The ink demon had answered her prayers. And yet, she could not understand. 

“The…that…” Despite how shaky her hand was, how dark swallowed them, she could still see a photograph in her hands once his inky arm released hers. It was the very one Alice gave and Sammy took away. “How- how did-” 

No answer. He simply stood, soundless omnipotence. 

Her heavy breathing couldn’t muddle the loudness of her thoughts- the clambering of questions and the shouting of impossibilities. But it was just-…just a photo! The scientist in her was baffled, and confusion curdled into frustration. 

“What…?!” she whispered breathlessly, pulling the picture close to her face, squinting at it in hopes to see something she hadn’t before. There was the man, the woman, the microphone, and the script. She repeated the list over and over to herself as she searched for something more. Man, woman, microphone, script-…and nothing else, no matter how hard she looked. 

A gaping mouth and eyes tightened but still open with bewilderment turned up to the ink demon, wordlessly begging for answers. This was his response to her questions. It had to be. He was truly a mystery- sometimes entirely unfathomable in purpose- but surely this meant _something._

Francine studied him as he refused to answer. His hoarse breath roughened his throat, hardly coming out like a whisper with no translation. There were no more gestures; just the ink that slowly flowed from his body and infected the floorboards, her eyes following until they fell to the picture again- 

Wait- the back! She didn’t check the back! 

A turn of the paper, however, also bore no fruit. Nothing more than incomprehensible smudges of some kind greying the page- 

Just as she was about to turn her gaze up to the god once again, his giant, barely solid hand curled all his fingers but one and gently tapped the back of the photograph. 

And as he held it there, it began to **change.**

The smudges swirled and faded, converging like paint in water gushing backwards to their source. The ink upon the paper concentrated in place, and the fingertip of the demon lifted so she may read what was written long, long ago. 

_“…‘with greatest love, Joey,’”_ she read aloud. 

Wait. 

_Crack._

“…Joey,” she repeated under her breath, her tongue sure it felt these syllables before. 

_Crack._

“Joey.” A little louder this time for her own ears to hear and examine. She had heard it- she had heard that name- 

_Crack._

Her heart jumped straight up into her mouth, ready to scream as revelation sparked her mind. 

“JOEY-” 

The studio cracked open not even a second after the mystery did and her shout turned into a shriek. The floor fell open beneath her, and her arm threw itself up to the ink demon as he continued to do nothing but stare as she began to plummet down, down, down. 

Too close. She had gotten too close. All that was felt now was a gut-wrenching fear of the totally new and unknown, of destinies unforeseen.


	7. Drifting Rooms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place…”_ – Acts 17:26

Footsteps were unfathomably so soft yet so loud in Sammy’s ears as he mindlessly sauntered back into the apartment’s hallway. The place was still instinctively unfamiliar, and yet he couldn’t take in its simple sights as was normally his way; his wandering companion’s cellphone was more than enough to enrapture his full attention. Although the gaping hole of his mask maybe wasn’t wide enough to display more than a mouth, it was enough for an audience to see solemn yet disturbed interest in what he held within his grasp. 

The black glass lined with thick, pink plastic stared back at him. Almost like a solid, still version of the machine’s ink, it seemed like a portal. Sammy certainly knew it was; much of its nature alluded him- as was to be expected when only just beginning to learn about _well_ over half a century of society that had continued without those of the studio- but he comprehended that somehow, someway it collected and archived films from past and present. Seemed to do more than that, too, but that was looking in between the lines of her explanation in the music room, a gentle smile on her lips and eyes glimmering with whimsy as she observed his staring at the screen. 

What more could it do, he wondered…as he was unsure how to even turn it on as she had done herself many a time. Sammy allowed his mind to drift even as the revelations and mysteries of the past few moments left his heart aching; it was like a billowing wind had blown through him and he was scavenging pieces of the debris to mold a raft, a place to stand and wait out the waves of sorrow and doubt as he waited for his friend to return. 

He could see his hands tighten around the phone, twitching with a slight quiver of dissonance that he needed to cast aside before it spread. Yes, she would certainly return. He would just have to weather the storm that came with her absence. 

The mask lifted from facing his cupped hands as he passed the threshold of the hall, entering the room she had claimed as her own. It wasn’t until now, however, that Sammy finally saw how she had truly tried to build her own sanctuary in this world after everyone else seemed to deny her theirs. 

At some point without his acknowledgement, Francine’s bag was emptied and spilled out the remnants of her previous way of being, staining the room with nostalgia for her and newness for him. The few items from her past delivered by the ink demon so they may follow her from her old life into the next were scattered across the room’s surfaces. His hands and their phone lowered as his chin lifted, taking it all in. Red caught the corner of his eye first- that all too familiar blemished mahogany, the color of her introduction. The prophet thoughtlessly walked to the gurney as upon it rested that strange cloak- that… “hood-ee,” as she called it before- the woman had worn when she first ran the halls and confronted salvation. It had been shed like shorn wool but not forgotten, at least not by the sheep. Just as he reached one hand and grasped at the cloth, he recognized the care she had treated it with after inky abuse; the dark tinges of her own body and of the black puddles were much fainter than before, tangible memories almost entirely retracted from reality as she had clearly put effort in washing them away. 

Suddenly it was just like when he had held this shirt to his chest days before. Even as he understood it was being tainted again now with his touch, he still didn’t want to let go. 

Equally abruptly, the shelf in this room began to call for him. And so the phone and the hoodie were tenderly lifted, the former in his left hand and the latter cradled with his right, a sleeve dangling over his arm like she did once in their past. 

There was one blaringly obvious object, a picture propped up against a few items left here by the saferoom’s unknown previous owner. Fresh paper was so astonishingly bright against the wilting yellow of the studio’s; the colors of the boy’s portrait upon it simply added to that glare, a missing child poster the woman had kept on her person up till her arrival both acting as a decoration and as a reminder that there were things worth waiting for. 

Other things were rested upon the shelves, too, but his eyes slid over each one until he saw a pale gold glimmer; it was different from that of the candles, however- somehow warmer to look at than flames themselves. It was a thin loop of metal with something facetted to it. He didn’t recognize it as a clear and sealed glass locket, dried flowers trapped inside that forever displayed what Francine might never touch again. 

Surrounded by the woman’s aura, it washed over him, held him, and consoled him for his foolishness. Like the small plant in her necklace, the bright hues bloomed around him and speckled his universe with a rainbow he had never seen. As he slowly turned and rested his weight upon the hammock, what Francine had brought with her stood out amid his existence much like she herself did, laying upon his lap and arching over and behind his glossy shoulders. Enveloped by who she had been up until she fell from grace, Sammy finally started to cross over the edge of understanding into why she had run after the demon. 

This was her home now, and the least she could do was try to find peace within it. And as his thumb’s anxious pressing accidentally lit the phone up once more, Sammy felt this same temptation sink into him. 

The clock ticked, the doll watched, and the mask shadowed his vision, but even among the faces of his lord, he was still powerless to the virus of Francine’s longing. Riptides dragged him from the shores of memory to sail the unknown. 

* * *

As she fell, Francine could feel liquid fly past her, striking her skin like a whip and crawling over her face. In the brief moment she was here it was recognized that ink was falling with her too, waterfalls and drips of various sizes and maybe even speeds. Besides her own shriek, little could be heard. What noise there was, however…was poignant. 

Haunted whispers. Muted groans. Distant screams. 

…None her own. 

Just as her own fright ceased blaring so loud just enough for her to recognize this unfathomable reality, Francine witnessed the endless darkness she was plummeting towards cease to exist, silhouettes of floorboards and splintering wood making a ring around a sudden, dim light. 

It grew brighter and bigger and brighter and bigger- 

The woman groaned upon impact as her cheek hit a surface. Shock momentarily stunned her wits, but soon there was recognition. Something cold was hitting her face, and she felt it weigh her clothes and gently pull them down. Eyelids fluttered and saw her fist in front of her, protecting Alice’s photograph from the black that swallowed the lower half of her hand. 

Lifting herself up, Francine began to grasp that she had once again been transported by a force totally beyond her comprehension and dropped somewhere new. Damn it- nothing made sense-! 

Just as she had begun to lament her frustrations, Francine’s soul was taken by the fact that she really, truly, was somewhere else, and the sensations that accompanied her arrival were utter nonsense. She felt like she had fallen forever, the floor broken beneath her feet, _rematerialized,_ only then to opening once more for her to enter like it was a wormhole. She blinked and twisted her neck all around not in observance but in investigation. Of course there wasn’t any sign of her entrance, yet again. 

This second realm, however, had a different sort of spell about it than the last. 

Unlike the lane of candles and the gallery with the guarded door, this place was filled with sound instead of deathly quiet. _Cl-cl-cl-cl-cl-cl-cl!_ Ticking wasn’t the right word; it was- 

One last turn of the head put a projector into view, her god’s most innocent form blinking upon the wall not bathed in light but as a part of it. 

She stepped through it, whiteness passing over her eyes until she emerged into a labyrinth. Walls curved and bent every which way, streaming film lighting the tight halls but barely making it visible at all. Her palms rose and gripped over the next corner, unsure what was waiting for her- 

Just as she peaked in, she triply as quickly hid away, chest rising and falling and a grimace wiped across her expression in terror. Curiosity being her nature despite every instinct of self-preservation, she repeated her approach to glimpse into the small nook in the wall. 

Yes, that was a corpse of one of the monsters she just saw before. Yes, that was a severed heart laying by its side. 

She couldn’t have sprinted ahead through this never-ending pool fast enough. 

The woman saw ink skim over her scuffed shoes once she finally stopped, bending over and holding her knees, panting due to both winded lungs and a panicked mind. Her head lifted, and hair moved out of her sight like a parting curtain to reveal she was sincerely lost. 

_“As if I wasn’t already,”_ she grumbled to herself. But spite couldn’t push away alarm, no matter how much she hoped otherwise. No, she couldn’t discard what had just occurred with the ink demon, the dread at what it all may mean and why this was being done to her. Air huffed through her teeth in an exhale of both grief and frustration. 

_Joey._

_Joey._

_Joey._

She didn’t know what that name may imply- what Bendy wanted her to learn from it so shortly before being forcefully dismissed from his presence- but the more she mulled over it, the more it began to pulse…and pulse turned into drive. Even as dread fell upon her shoulders, Francine found herself standing upright once again and marching through this murk to wherever she was intended to be next- 

One last step. One final splash as the woman’s eyes found familiarity in a land previously unknown. 

She recognized that booth. 

A Little Miracle Station was placed just around the next bend. She could tell it was vacant, as its door was open and hardly hinged to its base. Almost like something tried to rip it off… 

Or someone. 

Flitting radiance suddenly fell over her shoulders to the blank wall ahead, showing her that the shadow of an old friend had joined hers. Trembling, Francine shifted her chin to gaze upon the projectionist as she disrupted his domain once again.


	8. Pictures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.”_ \- 1 Corinthians 13:2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodness, LePetiteInkMango made art of one of my favorite moments in Parables! Please check it out!!!!
> 
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/post/174881012543/lepetiteinkmango-for-even-a-touch-of-humanity
> 
> AND Silver made me art of THE LAST CHAPTER!!! I CANT BELIEVE IT TBH!!! Please look at this too! Support these artists!
> 
> https://slipnslideblog.tumblr.com/post/174902027804/enveloped-by-who-she-had-been-up-until-she-fell

A gasp before anything else once Francine recognized where she was. The sound of her shifting feet splashing was barely an interruption to the overwhelming dread, hardly there to break horrific silence. Limbs outstretched and head bobbing with heavy breath, it was undeniable that the woman was standing before the one and only projectionist- 

“N-Norman!” she croaked, unbearable weight upon her tongue as she uttered a name unexpected. 

Norman mirrored her stance in his own way, surprised- maybe even shocked if he was capable of such emotional or mental depth- but not terrified as she was. As the world twisted its way around Francine, she had much more to contemplate than the projectionist did, the being who simply was at hand upon her arrival. While she fell from one existence to the next, to him she just plopped in like a drop of rain without a cloud in sight. A mystery to them both, but with drastically different outlooks. 

The machine attached to his neck all too humanly titled in curiosity as her skull angled further and further back alongside his slow approach. A few sounds: her sharp yet hushed breath, the clicking of the projectors- including his own-, and the sloshing of the shallow black pool beneath and over the warped man’s boots. He didn’t stop until the source of his light was inches from her face, her lower eyelids squinting up but unable to close as absolute astonishment faceted them into place. 

The longest moment of silence, rays of his sight crawling around the woman and making painfully obvious how every last muscle in her face had tightened in utter trepidation. 

…A sudden, slightly more distinct _click!_ and Norman’s gaze dulled alongside a sharpened demeanor. Somehow a screech from his chest’s speaker conveyed mildness, and his shoulders rolled back and his arms lifted to repeat his strange hello. 

This greeting, of course, was not received as lightly. 

Just like their last meeting, Norman had put his hands to the woman’s face, looking for any vibrations- signs of sounds he could no longer create himself- to enrapture him. As they found their way, she found herself panicking…and the passing of time gave her more reason to. 

Eyeballs shook in their sockets as Francine looked upon the projectionist, his light not being the only cause of her squinting. His fingertips felt her struggling lungs, hums of desperation in her throat, and finally, words from her lips. 

“Im… it’s… that’s not- that’s-….” His thumb felt the corner of her mouth as she eventually found the only word that could explain all this. “…Impossible,” she hardly stuttered, amazement glossing over her eyes. 

And that it was. Now, surely it was incredible- inconceivable- that when she first set off to find Bendy, a lean of rest made her stumble into a ghostly hall unknown with no sign of her entrance. It was the same when the endlessness stopped being from forward and back and suddenly began side to side, and especially so when the floor broke open beneath her feet just as the ink demon bestowed upon her a letter from long ago. But this? This was confirmation of something she couldn’t fathom. 

Her being in Norman’s grasp once again suggested that the building itself had reshaped around her, as if being soaked in the ink caused magic to seep through the wood and make it pliable. 

And suddenly that realization overtook every other horror being in this monster’s arms had brought. Abruptly his touch was too invasive not only into her personal space but her thoughts, as they were already suffocating among themselves alone. 

“Stop!” she demanded, her voice taking a tone not too different from that of a child begging a sibling to refrain from poking them- bar the emotions that come with reality seeming to crumble around her. Such confidence, however, didn’t take long to entirely wane, for alongside her speaking she had firmly gripped his wrists and tried to push them back, and his response reminded her that she was truly within his clutches. 

Indeed, she was certainly a toy within his hands as her touch distracted him from one part of her body to another. Norman’s fingers retracted from her face and swiftly maneuvered to hold _her_ wrists in return. 

Now, anyone watching would soon be able to tell that the projectionist in this moment wasn’t far from a fascinated toddler, captured by sensations and touch and wishing to investigate them simply for his own satisfaction. As his right thumb smoothed over the palm of her left and their other hands found his fingers wrapping past her knuckles, he either couldn’t feel her racing pulse or opted to ignore it. A hold of naïve enthrallment was nothing besides a nightmare for her as she recalled the way he had ripped open the very door they stood beside now not too long ago. She wanted to yell, but the culmination of this ordeal seemed to have stolen her voice. 

But somehow, the silence of terror began to allow some logical thought; it was likely staring right into the face of whom she had come to…“visit” that had brought up an idea. And the importance of this possible revelation gave her the courage to try to reposition her right hand into something more explanatory. 

Norman saw her quivering eyes just behind the photograph, the paper blocking the bottom of her face as she could now hold it within clear sight. She had remembered why she was here and of the piece of the past still in her possession, and even though it wasn’t much…she finally felt a sense of direction. 

It made sense to see this encounter as only an extension of her journey- or at least it would make sense of why Bendy seemed to bid she go so shortly after giving her the beginning of the answer. Maybe the rest laid with the man that possessed thoughts but no words. Maybe…maybe somehow, he could help…was _intended_ to help. 

His light blinked and came back brighter as the photo looked back at him, and the woman felt his grasp grow gentler as his mind was drawn to other things. Then there was another slight tilt of his projector accompanied by a simultaneously soft and sharp sound from his chest, almost like a pet bird making a noise of inquiry as something new is placed into its cage. His illumination slid over the two people with such brilliance that it was almost only their outline that he could see, but… 

As the woman felt his clasp linger off her hands to be replaced at the corners of the photo, he seemed to be hypnotized by the man and woman in black and white. It was…tender, even. So magically, the man with no eyes could gaze at the image in front of him, and a face with no expression somehow seemed to melt for people long gone. 

Of course, her heart melted too and so she was also swept away- having never expected such sentiment from the projectionist- but after a moment or two of watching him study the photo dearly, it grew to be the time she do what she came here to do. 

“Do you know who they are?” she asked quietly, wanting to interrupt his trance without disturbing him. But ah of course, he could say nothing in return as he _heard_ nothing, and Francine had a frown of dismay cross her lips as she remembered he was not only mute but deaf. 

There had to be something though. There had to be. 

“Hold on,” she explained more to herself than to him, using one finally free hand to pinch the top of the paper and coax him into turning it over. Norman did so, and her face lit up even without his light as he seemed to recognize- 

And oh how loud did he _scream._

It was so abrupt, so different from him even when he had scared her the most, and his shriek seemed to pierce every corner of the maze and rattle every drop of ink upon the floor; she could still feel either its distress or its outrage no matter how far away she fled. By a miracle, she eventually stepped through the exit of the labyrinth but didn’t stop bolting until she reached the top of the stairs to the elevator. 

Francine exhaled a sigh to relieve both anxiety and worry as she hit a button upon the wall’s panel. Maybe the projectionist couldn’t handle Joey’s name but reemerging into the angel’s halls reminded her where she had heard it before; she would need to press on without his help nor his blessing. 

And certainly she didn’t seem blessed to walk the path she had chosen, Norman’s cries gradually muting away as the elevator rose and obscured the warren he hid among. 

She swore the lights didn’t seem to blink in nearly as much of a frenzy as this the last time she was in here. 

Back in his lair, the projectionist began to hold his “head,” twisting and turning almost as if he could shake off his distress; amid his writhing, the photo fell to the puddles. 

And then the ink took it back. 

* * *

When Sammy first found his faith, it was everything. All that was, all that would be, and all that was now. Bendy was inexplicably the encompassing aura of his entire universe, and so it was only logical for both his mind and for his soul to trust that this entity was the one to believe in; it is almost effortless to believe in the person or thing that seems to make your world what it is. 

But the existence of one’s god is inevitably painted by their worshiper’s brush. The being that represents all that everything is can easily be reshaped and rewritten by even the most fleeting of emotions. 

But Sammy was strong in spirit, and as his life changed little over such an extensive, unnatural period of time, so had remained his faith. 

To feel it shaken was utterly frightening. And as many do when they aren’t sure about the nature of being, he mindlessly looked for answers. 

What did her phone seem to contain? Answers. 

Answers to questions he never asked. 

Blessedly, the first app he picked by accident was her photo album. Now, before all he had witnessed the phone do was glow and perform; maybe it would have been commonsense to assume that still pictures could exist within it as well, but Sammy was totally off-guard nonetheless. 

Or maybe the surprise was in learning he wasn’t the only one among the two one keeping secrets. 

Why didn’t she ever tell him about her family? Sure, he knew vaguely the existence of a “Gabby,” but she seemed to have allowed his memory to drift away so that she may find peace with however long they’d be apart. But just as he had attempted to hide his “family”- the residents of the studio forced to share this cursed fate- she had hidden hers. But even as she abandoned them and along with all she used to have, it dawned upon him that she still kept them in her heart. 

She confined inside a great, great care for the people she left behind, and they had returned it. He could see it in their smiles. In their holds around her waist. In the way their eyes pinched with joy, with happiness, with- 

A word he hadn’t thought about in a long time came next, one that was previously reserved only for worship. It was so mighty, so overpowering that he could no longer stare at the people who radiated it, spreading this spell into the air through the screen’s glow. 

He forced his chin up to break from this enchantment only to see that as he had done before many times in his life, he had unconsciously wandered into other parts of the studio without his recognition. Somewhere entirely new once again, he was placed in these halls in search of something. There had been occasions before where he had been called to retrieve what Bendy brought from the outside, but now he was to find something within. 

And for the first time in many, many years, Sammy acted upon a longing to rediscover the life that was stolen from him, the people he used to love.


	9. Facing Fears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _”Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”_ \- Matthew 5:6

There was certainly magic in that ink. It slithered away like high tide pulling back just as Sammy spotted it pool along the floor. With a brief glimmer, he was left with a wall near each shoulder and an opening just ahead. There was a sign over the doorway, bronze that seemed to rust into the same color pallet as the rest of the yellowing studio. He tilted his head towards it for a minute, taking in this simple novelty amid a world everchanging yet so very worn under his feet, and then he emerged through the gate. 

He was soon encircled by a blockish pattern. There were papers everywhere, like someone before he in a craze had dug through every last folder, book, and album in search of something they had lost. As shelves of this archive towered over him, it seemed as if the pages had spilled from its crevasses like ink would spew from the ever-present pipes. 

To anyone else it would have been an absolute mess- they’d be completely dismayed to try to find something among it all- but to Sammy? It was all new. He knew not how he came to be here, nor what exactly he was supposed to find, but the drive in his soul was undeniable. 

Sammy was within a treasure trove of memories, the terrible things that smothered him and blinded him, and yet he would remain. As his thumb smoothed over his friend’s phone, there was a nameless desire to fill his life where it suddenly seemed so, so empty. 

* * *

Everything about the world appeared so much more volatile to Francine than before. Sure, the shock that accompanied all the realizations traversing the angel’s realm the first time had been distracting, but it wasn’t enough so for the woman to not notice differences. 

She clung to this reality without deliberating it, without asking why the elevator seemed to rattle more nor why it seemed to carry her with abrupt changes in speed. It was a likewise acknowledgement without comprehension as when she stepped into the halls, ink seeming to gush more forcefully than before, causing the pooling and piles of black along the floor to writhe; the never-ceasing pump of the ink machine made it run past her shoes like a stream, the faster the farther she tried to squirm her way out. 

Indeed, it unquestionably got worse the closer she came to the room she wanted to reach. Francine, of course, wasn’t present long ago when the studio was last this disturbed; she wasn’t aware this was also how it once grew to treat a man visiting 30 years after its fall from glory. Yes, it wasn’t familiar to her- but it was regardless a previously known, chaotic commotion to this building rotten with hurt feelings. 

And abruptly, another familiarity from an unknown counterpart’s journey had arrived to further mirror their blights. Its blade had a line of light glide off its edge with a glare as she turned the corner, and a heart already beating at top speed somehow broke its own record. 

Somehow as the pipes seemed to hum with agitation rather than a slow vigor and their blood seemed even more alive than last she was here- even as the stare of the cutouts and toys made in their god’s image never left her for a second- the sight of the axe merely leaning against a propped-up board was what finally made her stop in her tracks and freeze her veins. 

Although much of the disciples’ conflict was centered around Sammy’s memories enveloping him, Francine still had her own. When the woman was rather a little girl, her mother once asked her to open a high cabinet to grab honey from the shelf of spices and other such wonders that seemed to make their food spark upon the tongue. Excitement- Frankie was finally tall enough to do it, her mommy had said! She could help! 

There was something her mother forgot to tell her, of course. 

A yank of the cabinet door was just a touch too eager, and one of the knives kept at the very top shelf within suddenly blinked away and reappeared between the toes her mother had named “this little piggy went to market” and “this little piggy stayed home.” Francine immediately yelped and jumped back, slipping on the aluminum floor of the kitchen until she sat face to face with her dulled reflection upon the blade. Such falling back, however, was not necessary. 

Almost right where her foot used to be, the knife never simply sputtered on its side to the floor. It stuck straight up, a quarter of an inch of its tip missing from sight. 

That’s why Francine hated sharp objects. 

She gripped the straps of her backpack anxiously. She knew this fear wasn’t severe enough to be a phobia, but there was no mistake that it was unsettling something deep inside her and the way the studio bothered her now made it like shaking a jar of bees. However, with the chipped metal’s sheen staring her back, the woman accepted a truth she very much wished to ignore. 

With extreme caution, Francine got on one knee, contemplated the axe, and gradually reached so its handle rested in her tightened palms. Such tenderness in her grip that came with fear and inexperience was her enemy, she realized, and so she did her best to force her knuckles firmer and to not constantly dread dropping the blade onto her feet as she once again began to walk her path. 

She hoped she wouldn’t need it. 

If she had been unsure before about this place being different since the last time she was here, she certainly noticed now. This was the last corner before that room, right? The one where she heard his name first in passing rather than ponderance, now praying it could reveal something she hadn’t looked for before. She might as well have been acting upon instinct to find it the way everything seemed swamped into obscurity with ink and shadow- 

And the anticipating welling in her chest dropped like a stone, finally stepping into the cove that kept her next objective only to find it entirely blocked. She gaped at it, disbelieving even when the studio had grown and grown more hostile and uneasy the nearer she knowingly approached secrets in plain sight. 

As splintered wood caged Joey Drew’s tape to render it untouchable, extending from floor to ceiling with murky liquid at their ends like a swarming glue, that’s when she knew something was _actively_ trying to keep her away from the truth. 

Or someone. 

Ink began to drip like rain and the structures around her seemed to have cracked into new, unwelcoming shapes, and just around the bend lurked the ink demon’s smile. 

It slipped out of sight. 

The studio thundered and wood cracked as soon as the chase began, her feet flying after those of the demon. Black waterfalls slammed. Darkness swirled. But she still ran. It was about fuckin’ time she got the answers she came for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you ready?


	10. The Path of the Demon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”_ – Isaiah 43:2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta read by AceofIntuition, who also has served as an irreplaceable source of ideas, inspiration, and support.
> 
> Thank you, Ace. You're amazing and this story wouldn't be the same without you.

And then two heroes’ stories merged into one. 

Both of the disciples were now enveloped in an aura both besides their own and yet inspired by them. Two different souls, two different purposes, two different threats. Speed and tone were polar opposite, and yet it was the same force that ran through the pipes and soaked the studio through till it reached its very foundation. It was like a snow globe; something beyond the comprehension of all but one within these walls had gradually sunk just under the surface of the denizens’ awareness. 

And then Francine and Sammy unknowingly shook this power until it flew back into their faces. 

Certainly, something sinister was profoundly unsettled by what they both were looking for. 

The very same thing. 

With each footstep of her dashing came with it a pound, slam, crack, and burst of ink. It spat in all directions, uncaring about the laws of reality. It spat at _her,_ going full force now that the curse’s tampering could no longer hide plain in her sight. 

It did, however, hide just behind _his_ as something across the room stole his full attention. He would never notice how the world just behind his feet became disturbed with each step closer to an innocuous object that seemed to call to him, to something deep inside he buried away. 

Somewhere beyond his hearing, Francine yelped in panic as a floorboard fell from the ceiling. She jumped back, but the woman was not deterred. As soon as it finished smacking into the inexplicably overflowing river of ink, she hopped over the obstacle and continued to run despite the black that chewed her legs and tried to pull her back, tried to slow her down. 

_Where was he?! Where was he-_

Through flying oily beads against a supernaturally murky backdrop- a place that she was _sure_ wasn’t the same hallway that the demon path led out to last time- she saw him- she saw a white flash. 

The demon’s massive cartoon glove was undeniable as the tip of its fingers slipped to the rightmost path at a T-corner that materialized from nowhere. 

And so the game began. 

Francine forced herself to focus beyond the fear inside her as she desperately clung to the axe; beyond the immediate bashing and clanging of ink, wood, and the small objects caught up in their fury; and beyond even the rooms themselves as they twisted into a maze. As darkness swallowed every surface- including her own- with moving, swarming shadows, she knew it was his aura. She knew that the worse it got, the closer she was to the truth, and so her eyes searched past distraction to catch hints of the slimy beast. 

_**Crash!**_

His leg sprinted past the bend. 

_**Rip!**_

His elbow slipped between a tightening crack in the walls. 

**_Boom!_**

His grin turned away, a brief burst of white in a room swishing with black. 

No matter where he went, he left signs for her to find. It escaped all but one how deeply ironic it was that this time, the demon was the one being chased. 

It was an absolute, heart-stopping horror. 

Meanwhile, Sammy in a separate world was unaware of the rattling magic nipping at his heels. With each lift of the foot towards something amazing, papers upon the ground shifted- not with his touch, but with winds of upset. At first it was quiet, like a fan turned on low pointed towards the floor, but then they rose higher and higher until quiet shuffling swelled into billowing just over his head. 

But he didn’t notice even as invisible distress was agitated into tangibility; he was captured not by the sovereignty of the ink demon nor of the machine but merely by the way something sat in a shelf up ahead. It was a normal sight for most but…something about the way it edged just a touch beyond the untidy stacking of books…something about the way shadow fell upon it, its surface haloed with light… 

It was a wordless spell that drew him in, and it was only then that someone knew that this thing ahead would show him too much if he grasped it. 

This same secrecy had already found Francine, obscuring everything in sight with its dusky mistrust, its violent dread. It indeed _was_ growing violent. The further she pursued the dripping fiend into a labyrinth of someone’s nightmare, the more everything seemed to- no… It _doubtlessly_ pushed back. Pipes burst overhead. Holes opened at her feet. Walls emerged where there were none before, right before her very eyes. 

The demon couldn’t hide his tricks from her, though. A vengeful smirk stretched across her face despite the absolute terror that simultaneously pulled it back; as she caught glimpses of his trail, she also perceived how to avoid its traps. 

Just as he ducked, she did, and the thundering splash of a breaking pipe swooped barely over her head. 

Just as he had sprung over a certain puddle on the floor so had she, the pool disintegrating the boards just where her feet were supposed to touch them. 

Just as a barrier came in front of her, risen from another existence to block her path, she knew the slim path to the left would still let her out, just as he had turned that way and squeezed beneath a mishmash of boards nailed diagonally across the grim alleyway. 

No, she had never been bold enough to call herself clever, but she certainly was resourceful with what this “god” left behind. 

With every step, she grew more certain. It was less about asking what “Bendy” knew and more about the confirmation of an idea that clasped her mind and spread like a disease. 

_Joey_

_Joey_

_Joey_

As she scurried behind the ink demon like a thread tied to his ankle, stomping through the thundering and unholy glory he left in his wake, Francine was becoming more and more convinced she knew who Joey was. 

The demon was right in front of her. 

With one more dash around the corner, Francine was fast approaching a long, simple hallway. No other path in sight. 

But this only one she had was completely boarded up except for one slit between the planks of wood that crisscrossed, allowing her to marvel the demon’s accursed sneer simply staring and pausing in tease. 

As if this would stop her. 

Suddenly the object she kept uncomfortably close to her chest had a purpose, one that burned in her hands until they set rage off like a firecracker. 

“You!” 

A hack of the axe into one of the beams. 

“STUPID!” 

Another, and the plank started to splinter just in front of where she could see his face. 

“SON OF A _BITCH!!!”_

And with that crescendo of spite, the wood broke open for her with one final swing, and she was left panting…and the demon gone from sight. 

Only a loud, harsh groan before she picked her weapon back up and continued her unrelenting hunt amid a relentless universe. 

She was going to get to Joey. She had to, and she _would._

And Sammy didn’t consciously know it, but something was in front of him too as he stopped in front of the shelf and tilted his head up at the object that mesmerized him among all the others. At the same time, someone was only just realizing that this event, too, was something to be afraid of. 

Suddenly there were not one but two people that needed to be stopped before they got any closer to what had been kept concealed for almost a century. 

Francine was gasping for air by the time she saw one last door up ahead, its immensity calling to her like it was a finish line. “Bendy” glanced over his shoulder at her just as she spotted him in front if it, and he leapt through this large slit of dim light at the end of the hallway. 

She realized with somehow even heavier breath that this slit was becoming thinner with every passing second. 

Then two things happened at once, two directions pulling the omnipresent authority of the studio and proved that it was nearly infallible. 

Nearly. 

Sammy’s mask faced the object peeking barely from the shelf above, his fingertip lifting to gently pull it into his life once again. Francine made the last dash towards a colossal door like that of Alice’s lair that was beginning to make its opening only barely big enough for her- threatening to become even smaller as she came nearer and nearer. 

As the curse of the studio needed to make two drastic actions at once to stop the entirely separate yet united forces that endangered it…it failed. Like pulling a piece of gum from end to end, this power finally could not stretch any further… 

…until it snapped. 

Sammy picked up what had been patiently waiting for him and Francine didn’t notice the gate hesitate just a second before she dived through its slim opening. 

She landed on her knees in heavy gasps, blood pounding in her ears so boisterously that her eyes were forced shut. One hand on her thigh and the other at her mouth as she coughed, Francine smiled in victory as she met the ink demon, who was merely standing in wait in front of her. 

“I-…” Another brief gag before the woman’s grin came back even fiercer than ever. “I _won…!”_

She rose to her feet, still leaning her palms against her own legs for support. Ink-soaked hair shifted back as she now relished the opportunity to look “Bendy” face to face. 

“I found you-!” 

And as she straightened her back, every last drop of confidence drained from her body. Lips trembled with words stolen from her mouth. Eyes blinked with disbelief. Shoulders shook with a tension that returned tenfold as soon as it had been released. 

_“J…Joey…-”_

As she stood in front of a gate in the middle of an ocean of ink, Francine had looked beyond the ink demon’s face and some ways behind him…saw that of another. 

Someone that looked as utterly terrified as she. 

…Human. 

With bright, ginger hair. 

“You won,” a soft voice admitted with awe. 

“Henry won, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want give a HUGE HUGE thank you for everyone reading this!!! Like...its unfathomable how much attention this has gotten. And not just attention but SUPPORT! You guys are...beyond my description for what you've done for me. Thank you for reading and I hope you like what I have planned for these guys next <3
> 
> Thank you!!!!
> 
>  **Also, this is the last chapter of this work but _not of the series!_** Look out for another work starting sometime probably within a week or so! I might title it "Tides of Longing," as that's a phrase I've loved to use in this series before.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve actually gotten so much art that the character limit won’t let me put in all the links at the end notes! WOW!!!! Thank you, everyone!!! You’re all amazing and ilysm!!!! <3  
> I will be adding links to fanart as I post chapters, but please check the following tags. I’ve categorized things by arc/drabble so that you don’t get spoilers.
> 
> The overall tag for Hymns fanart is here:  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/tagged/hymns-art
> 
> The tag for Hymns of Struggle as the first work alone is here:  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/tagged/hos-art
> 
> Wonders of Heresy (the part you just read):  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/tagged/wonders-art
> 
> Parables of Empathy:  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/tagged/parables-art
> 
> Flickers of Faith (the part you just read):  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/tagged/flickers-art
> 
> Tides of Longing:  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/tagged/tides-art
> 
> Cares of Communion:  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/tagged/cares-art
> 
> Dances of Duality:  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/tagged/dances-art
> 
> A Rock in the River:  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/tagged/a-rock-in-the-river-art
> 
> What’s Not Yours:  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/tagged/wny-art
> 
> General/Crossover Art:  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/tagged/general-art
> 
> Any art involving Gingie (the Joey of this AU):  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/tagged/gingie-art
> 
> And a commission of Gingie painted by my good friend Ace hehe:  
> https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/post/177183125008/aceofintuition-is-there-anything-quite-so
> 
>  **And here’s a playlist I’ve made:**  
>  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY8pGhalYoCuHX0dLpmuY3jNYntmUjltg
> 
>  **Read this if you plan on being so kind as to make me art yourself!!!!** (Some of it applies to content not canon to Hymns but still applies here):  
>  https://pipesflowforeverandever.tumblr.com/post/176339938068/so-with-aces-permission-im-going-to-sort-of-add
> 
> Thank you everyone for your support!!!!!! I couldn’t do it without you!!! <3 <3 <3 Special thanks to the artists that have given me so, so much more than I could ever ask for:  
> Ace, Star, Silver, Gia, Metallic, Lil Griffin, Ufopilots, June, Halfie, Fern, Moonshadow0, Mango, CrowSketches, A-Rae-Of-Sunshine, Queen
> 
>  **THIS ISN'T THE END OF THE FIC, BY THE WAY!** Go ahead and read the next work in this series!


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